Our Thanksgiving Price Index

November 24, 2025

Given the variety of news headlines this week about the cost of Thanksgiving, we thought we'd come up with our own "Thanksgiving cost index" using the CPI data.

I watched a news interview recently about the cost of Thanksgiving dinner.  One person said the prices were down.  The other person said that basket wasn’t the same as prior years … and round they went.    So let’s take an honest look at it.

Where to start?  What’s the best data source?

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a federal agency that tracks a vast amount of economic data.   One of their most important roles?  Tracking inflation.  Specifically, they calculate the “consumer price index” or CPI.  The BLS CPI data is used to adjust Social Security checks, tax brackets, legal contracts, interest rate futures, and on and on.   So it’s pretty important.

Now, most people don’t know this.  But the BLS monthly CPI data gets VERY detailed.   Need to know the cost of lunchmeat or infants clothing or getting your grass cut over the past 30 years?  No problem.  BLS has it in its database.   (It’s on their website!)

How do they get all this data?  Brute force.  Each month, the BLS economic assistants will visit or call 23,000 retail establishments across 75 urban areas.  They check the price of the exact same item each month.  They don’t just check “toothpaste”, they check “8oz, Crest, mint”.

So let’s use this database to measure Thanksgiving inflation!

First step, I came up with a generic Thanksgiving basket.  My items were:  

• turkey

• potatoes

• biscuits/rolls/muffins

• vegetables

• butter

• cheese and related

• cakes/cupcakes/cookies

• coffee

• wine bought for home  

  
  

See the price charts for these items below.

Yes, this is a mess.  The point of showing this mess is to point out the general trend among ALL the items.   Whether it’s turkey or coffee, the price of everything spiked in 2022.  This was due to the supply chain disruption from the COVID pandemic shutdown.

Now let’s add it all up.  I assumed the dinner-related items were 80% of the total.  The drinks and desserts were 20% of the total.  The outcome is below.

Again, you can see our index rose sharply in 2022.  It was flattish in 2023 and 2024, but it’s starting to creep higher again in 2025.  It’s certainly not rising at the 2022 pace.   The most recent month we have is September.  Our basket was up 2.9% yr/yr in September and 2.6% in 3Q.  

But… since it’s a holiday week, let’s end this story on a good note.  The offset to this is “how much are people’s salaries increasing?”  

Below you can see the growth in “average hourly earnings” for all private employees versus our Thanksgiving Cost Index above.  The cost of Thanksgiving shot past wages dramatically in 2022.  That’s bad.

But wage growth has risen steadily in the 4-5% per year range since 2019.  So eventually wages caught up.  And even surpassed it!  (To simplify, the orange line are the good guys;  the dark blue line are the bad guys.)  

Thanksgiving cost is making a comeback at the moment. But wages are still ahead … slightly.  So even tho prices are up, most folks can afford it after the last few years of wage growth.   The reason for all the dourness of late is that prices are starting to rise again.  Let’s hope that’s just noise.